Meet Aaron and Mitch, the founders of Shire Snax
If you need to eat little and often, if you can't afford to get hungry because of the havoc it causes, or if you're on the go a lot and need to snack to keep you going; Shire Snax will serve you well! Their bars are handmade, delicious, nutritious, and come in lovely minimalistic packaging! Find out more about Shire Snax, and the lovely owners, Aaron and Michelle below.
What does Shire Snax specialise in selling?
Shire Snax makes raw, vegan, gluten-free fruit and nut bars, as well as raw desserts. Our products are handmade by us and we go to great lengths to keep things simple. We even dehydrate our own fruit when we can so that there are no sugars or oils added to something that was already perfect.
Where is Shire Snax based?
We are based in sunny Edinburgh, Scotland.
Do you exclusively serve those who are local to you or can others who are further away access your products too? If so, how?
We sell at local markets and festivals, and customers can buy our products through a few select local stockists too. However, if you're not in the area, you can order our bars and raw vegan brownies online!
What inspired you to create a business that solely focuses on gluten free and vegan energy bars and cakes?
Shire Snax was born out of necessity because of our own dietary needs. We travel a great deal and we grew tired of having to always worry about finding something that could give us a boost when we ran low on energy. This is when Mitch began making bars for us to take on our travels. We gave some out to friends to try, and Shire Snax was born.
When we began making them we realised they were gluten-free, which was great for our friends friend who are coeliac! To make it coeliac friendly, we invested in separate equipment which would be dedicated to making sure there's no cross-contamination.
The vegan part was easy, because we are vegan. We weren’t putting anything animal based ingredients in our food to begin with and we didn't want to change that.
How easy is it for you to source cruelty free ingredients for your products?
Not hard at all. We primarily buy what we need from Suma Wholefoods, and we use local stockists too.
Do these ingredients effect the outcome in comparison with non vegan energy bars and cakes?
Yes. They are better, because no animal suffered to create them which just makes the bars taste better.
The secret ingredient is love…love for all living things.
For someone who hasn't tasted your bars or cakes, before and is indecisive about what to buy; is there a particularly popular one you can name?
Jaffa Cakes are big here, and Jaffa (the Hutt) tends to be our biggest seller, but they have all developed a following. Since we hand make them the bars are fresher and the flavours come through.
Is Shire Snax owned by, or in partnership with, another company that tests on animals or sells non-vegan products?
We are but a wee company of two, and Shire Snax is our only venture. We do not test on animals, but we have been known to dress our cats up on occasion.
Tell me a bit about yourself before you launched Shire Snax?
Michelle (AKA Mitch) and I met in 2002. We met on the 4th of July and got married that New Year’s Eve. She hasn’t been able to shake me since. We were both morbidly obese and had gastric bypass surgery, which changed our lives.
We were already grateful to have found each other, but the surgery freed us to go out and explore the world together. The surgery has made us lactose-intolerant and it created a limit on the amount of sugar we can consume without getting ill. This motivated Mitch to create Shire Snax. They help fuel our adventures while we are on the go!
Mitch is a full-time PhD student and I work at a Uni full-time as a bureaucratic paper pusher, so Shire Snax is a part time endeavour and a labour of love.
What is your vision for the future of Shire Snax?
Our vision for the future is to keep on adventuring. We would like to expand and grow the business, but we refuse to sacrifice our integrity or quality of our products, so who knows what that will look like in the end.
We plan to just keep on enjoying this amazing opportunity to connect with people and provide fuel for their adventures.